OLUMBIA, S.C. -- Strapped to his dying instructor a few thousand feet from the ground on his first skydive, Daniel Pharr found himself floating toward a house and some trees.
The military taught the 25-year-old soldier not to panic. And TV taught him to pull the toggles on the already-deployed parachute to steer. So Pharr grabbed the right handle and pulled to avoid the house and tugged again to miss the trees, landing safely in a field about a third of a mile from their intended landing spot.
Pharr said he wrestled out of the harness binding him to his instructor, George "Chip" Steele, and started CPR trying to save him from an apparent heart attack.
Steele was later pronounced dead, but the tragedy could have been worse: Other instructors at the skydiving school told Pharr if he had pulled the toggle too hard, the chute would have spun out of control, and he could be dead, too.
"They told me afterward that it was amazing that I knew to do that. This is my survival instinct at that point. I just kind of did what I had to do," said Pharr, taking a break Monday from his job at Fort Gordon.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the reins of the 53-nation African Union at a summit in Ethiopia on Monday amid concerns over deadly unrest in Madagascar and a bid to indict Sudan's president for war crimes. Gaddafi, who has long promoted stronger union within the organization and poured money into some parts of Africa, was handed the chairman's gavel by outgoing AU leader Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian president, to warm applause from other leaders.
But Southern African leaders had lobbied for a leader from their region, as the next summit moves to crisis-hit Madagascar, according to delegates to the summit. Other African nations were also unhappy about the choice of Gaddafi as the bloc's chairman but under AU rules the post rotates among Africa's regions and this year was set to go to a North African leader. Gaddafi was the only one present.
"United States of Africa"
" I hope my term will be a time of serious work and not just words...I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa. "
Gaddafi
The Libyan leader was elected in a closed-door vote and vowed to press ahead with plans to create a "United States of Africa" despite other leaders' reluctance to back his objective. "I hope my term will be a time of serious work and not just words," Gaddafi said in his inaugural speech. "I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa," he said, admitting that African leaders were "not near to a settlement" on the issue. "We are still independent states."
Gaddafi and Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade have been calling for years for an accelerated process towards a union government, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalization, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference.
Kikwete told a news conference on Sunday night the meeting had agreed only to change the name of the current AU Commission into an "authority," rejecting a proposal by the body itself to transform it immediately into a union government. But many African heads of state are loathe to relinquish any of their sovereignty, and during closed-door talks on Sunday, they again postponed his dream of closer union.
Political unrest
The summit, which ends on Tuesday, has been overshadowed by political unrest in Madagascar, torn apart in a power struggle that has killed 68 people so far. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the summit he was "particularly concerned" about the crisis, and urged that all parties "address their differences peacefully and through existing constitutional mechanisms."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2009 00:00 ||
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And MUGABE [read - ZS$1.0TRILYUHN = US$1.0]- CAN "THE COLONEL/LEADER" FROM LIBYA = UNCLE MUHAMMAR SAVE MUGABE FROM MUGABE, ZIMBABWE FROM ZIMBABWE???
IIRC, bad as it was I don't think even PRE-ADOLF HITLER/1933 WEIMAR GERMANY's HYPER-INFLATION WAS AS BAD AS ZIMBABWE'S - am I correct, or not!?
Given the resurgent Islamist troubles in MADAGASCAR [OWG Free Trade Zone = South Asia Zone], methinks Zimbabwe is all but formally demanding to be invaded by the UNITED KINGDOM + ITS ROYAL NAVY = "GRAND SQUADRON/GLOBAL TASK UNIT", BUT I DON'T THINK THE BRITS ARE MIL-ECON UP TO IT???
OTOH TOPIX > POTUS OBAMA + ADMIN > OBAMA'S [OWG-Global VIETNAMS [multi-Wars]?: THE USA, CHINA, AND ISLAM SOON TO COLLIDE/CLASH IN ASIA, AFRICA, AND AMERICAS?
CHALK UP ANUTHER ONE FOR YEAR 2009-2012[2016] POST-DUBYA PERIOD.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — The bound bodies of a Mexican general and two soldiers were found Tuesday morning near Cancun, news reports said.
Authorities were investigating whether one of the soldiers was a bodyguard for Cancun Mayor Gregorio Sanchez, El Universal newspaper said on its Web site, citing the prosecutor for Quintana Roo state.
“Without a doubt, this was an organized crime execution,” said prosecutor Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo. “You can see they were followed and then intercepted. They tied them and machine-gunned them.”
#1
A general? Is that like a general of parking tickets, or an honest-to-god military general in the armed forces??? If the latter, that's pretty embarrassing for Meh-Hee-Koh.
#2
By the time the Morales' cokeheads get their stuff together the world will have moved onto carbon or silicon nanowires.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2009 15:07 Comments ||
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#3
That any company would depend on Bolivia for its supply is madness. Note that Chile has 60 percent as much Lithium as Bolivia and it is a much friendlier and more sophisticated country to work with.
Chinese warships sent to fight piracy in waters off Somalia were stalked by an Indian attack submarine and the two sides became locked in a tense standoff for at least half an hour, mainland media reported yesterday. After rounds of manoeuvring during which both sides tried to test for weaknesses in the other's sonar system, the two Chinese warships managed to force the Indian submarine to surface. The Indian vessel left without further confrontation.
The incident was reported by Qingdao Chenbao yesterday and was widely carried by major mainland websites such as Sina.com and QQ. Both Beijing and New Delhi were silent about the matter. This is the first reported military standoff between China and India since a bitter border war in 1962.
The incident took place on January 15 in waters near the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, which separates Yemen and Djibouti, at the western end of the Gulf of Aden. The Chinese destroyers had picked up an unidentified submarine on their sonar, the report said.
The Chinese navy soon identified it as a 70-metre-long vessel armed with 20 torpedoes. Although the report did not directly specify the model, it provided a file photo of a Kilo-class submarine belonging to the Indian navy, which fit the description.
The submarine tried to evade the Chinese warships by diving deeper. But the warships continued the chase. The report said the Chinese ships sent an anti-submarine helicopter to help track the submarine, which had tried to jam the Chinese warships' sonar system.
But the two destroyers eventually cornered the submarine and forced it to surface. The report said the submarine had been trailing the Chinese ships since they had entered the Indian Ocean on the way to Somalia. It said that at one point the Chinese commander even ordered the helicopter to have its anti-submarine torpedoes ready.
The Indian submarine is believed to have been collecting electronic signals and sonar data from the Chinese warships. Such information would be crucial in naval conflicts.
The two destroyers China sent to Somalia are among its most advanced warships. One of the destroyers, Haikou, was commissioned in 2005.
It is rare for mainland media to report such a close encounter between the Chinese navy and foreign warships. Although deemed a provocative and unfriendly gesture, it was not unusual for one country to send submarines to collect other navies' information.
In 2006, a Chinese submarine was detected stalking the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk near the Japanese island of Okinawa. The Chinese submarine eventually surfaced close to the US battle group.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/03/2009 18:54 ||
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INDIA has rampaging Radical Islam to its front, CHINA in its rear + Tibet, + MAOISTS/NAXALITES within, and the US-NATO in-between.
#4
From experience, the diesel boat had no chance of evading if it had no intentions of firing. With a submerged speed of 5-7kts and maybe a top of 12kts max in short bursts, it had no chance of getting away from air assets. Hope we had something more capable nearby to pick up all the data. The only thing that sounds fishy (no pun intended) is the statement "which had tried to jam the Chinese warships' sonar system". That sounds like BS or an uninformed writer spicing it up.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
02/03/2009 22:43 Comments ||
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#5
After rounds of manoeuvring during which both sides tried to test for weaknesses in the other's sonar system, the two Chinese warships managed to force the Indian submarine to surface.
Here's the question - if both are in international waters, why would there be any confrontation? It seems to me that both parties have a legitimate right to be exactly where they are.
#6
Also if this account is true, it seems to me that the Chinese aren't shy about shadowing other navies, but get their dander up when they're being shadowed, instead.
A Chinese government official has outlined new principles to stem the growing unrest from an economic downturn that has left 26 million migrant workers looking for jobs.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2009 00:00 ||
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ION WAFF > TAIKISTAN MAY BE LOOKING PAST RUSSIA, AND SEEING IRAN [don't like Russ new econ rapport /ventures wid UZBEKISTAN]???
#2
Do they plan to poison pet food and baby milk with industrial chemicals, as a cost-cutting measure? Lead paint on toys? Inquiring minds want to know....
#3
Wouldn't be easier just to open branches of the People's Bank of Beijing at our local Walmarts and start issuing credit directly to the consumers employing all those trillions of dollars of Treasury Bonds as the basis? Certainly that would cut out a lot of the middle men waste in stimming the economy and getting those kids off the farms and back into the factories churning out pet toys and next Christmas' aisle stuffers.
#4
A Chinese government official has outlined new principles to stem the growing unrest from an economic downturn that has left 26 million migrant workers looking for jobs.
They're going into the human-organ supply business in a big way.
#5
ION CHINA, WAFF > CHINA: TIANWAN NUCLEAR POWER STATION FIRE [Pre-BEIJING OLYMPICS; Russo-Ukrainian design].
CHINA has had FIVE-PLUS MAJOR NUCPLANT SHUTDOWNS OCCUR IN THE LAST 12 YEARS.
ALso, REDDIT/OTHER > SCIENTISTS:CHINA'S SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE [80,000 dead, 5.0Milyuhn homeless] MAY HAD BEEN MANMADE? China's new 315Milyuhn-tonne capacity Zipingu Hydro-Elex Power Dam + Lake Reservoir, completed in 2004 and one of 400 HE Dams-Stas China has inside the quake zone, was loc only 550 yards from the Sichuan quake epicentre. PWRSTA + DAM + LAKE, ETC. GROSS WEIGHT WAS TOO MUCH FOR LOCAL TECTONICS???
Opponents of the government have been calling for an "Obama-style" stimulus plan, one that puts money directly into the pockets of working people. Oh, so now The One is putting money directly into the pockets of working people, is he? Pardon moi, but I think Madame Pelosi has other ideas.
#5
I've said it here before and I'll say it again. I know second hand Camp Delta is filled with some of the meanest and most hateful pieces of human refuse there is. To drag them out and shoot them would be to do each and every one of us a favor.
Bambi isn't that much of a realist.
The Senate confirmed Eric H. Holder Jr. as the nation's first African American attorney general by a vote of 75 to 21 yesterday. The Senate vote occurred four days after Holder overcame concerns by a small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers over his position on national security and gun rights, as well as his recommendations in two controversial clemency decisions by President Bill Clinton.
Holder's advocates marshaled critical support from a broad base of federal and state law enforcement groups as well as a bipartisan coalition of former Justice Department leaders, including onetime deputy attorney general James B. Comey, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh and President George W. Bush's terrorism and homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.
His service in the Clinton years invited criticism from GOP lawmakers, who also questioned his approach to hot-button terrorism policies. At a grueling, seven-hour hearing last month, flanked by his wife and three young children, Holder labeled as "torture" the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding and vowed to make national security his top priority.
Holder also said that he would look askance at efforts to "criminalize policy differences" but did not conclusively rule out prosecution of Bush administration officials for their involvement in detainee questioning and warrantless surveillance operations. That issue emerged as a pivot point for conservatives such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), who voted in opposition to Holder.
Another nay vote came from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Coburn concluded that Holder's recommendation of "neutral leaning toward favorable" in the last-minute 2001 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich "should disqualify him from higher office."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/03/2009 00:00 ||
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It's entirely possible we won't. Purely in the interest of fairness, of course.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2009 9:38 Comments ||
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We'll have to go to faxes or hand copies like it was done in the former Soviet Union: "Samizdat."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/03/2009 11:24 Comments ||
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#4
At a grueling, seven-hour hearing last month, flanked by his wife and three young children
He made his wife and kids sit thru a day-long Senate hearing? That sounds like torture to me. A little strange too; like when you bring your Mom with you on a job interview.
#7
I didn't realize the senate trunks were going to fight. I thought they were just going to make sure they got their fair share of pork. Like the Caliphornia trunks.
#8
Besides choosing their fights, having the dirt on somebody as powerful as attorney general gives them some leverage in the future. May help keep him in line. They overlooked Obama's birth certificate and other controversial issues, too, but it may come in handy to have an ace or two to play.
Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain. The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world's leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers.
Al Gore was at the launch event in San Francisco which, Google hopes, will take its mapping software a step closer to total coverage of the entire globe. In a statement, Mr. Gore said that the update would make Google Earth a "magical experience. You can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet's surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world's ocean that covers almost three-quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions."
Approximately 70% of the world's surface is covered by water, which contains nearly 80% of all life - yet less than 5% of it has actually been explored.
Google Ocean aims to let users visit some of the more interesting locations, including underwater volcanoes, as well as running videos on marine life, shipwrecks and clips of favourite surf and dive spots.
Conservation organisations hope the tool will improve awareness of issues facing undersea life. "With this, everybody can see the unbelievable beauty of our marine life and how incredibly threatened it is," said Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the global marine programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "We hope this major technological innovation will get the public more involved in marine conservation and encourage governments and businesses to stop driving ocean species to extinction."
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/03/2009 13:50 ||
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...encourage governments and businesses to stop driving ocean species to extinction."
Or provide them with a magical tool for locating schools of tasty sea kittens.
INDONESIA is planning a crackdown on illegal polygamous marriages and will ask all Muslim couples to undergo pre-wedding marriage courses, an official said on Monday.
Religious affairs ministry official Nasaruddin Umar told AFP the government was concerned about rising rates of divorce, especially the increasing numbers of women who are leaving their polygamous husbands.
According to Indonesian court figures, in 2007 there were 937 cases of divorce due to differences over polygamy, up from a reported 813 in 2004.
Polygamy is technically legal in this mainly Muslim country, but only when the husband has registered his marriages and received the consent of his other wives.
'In our law, polygamy is allowed but the requirements are very hard. The man has to get the consent of his wife but a normal wife will never give consent to her husband wanting to marry another woman,' Mr Umar said.
'What's happening is that men are taking another wife without registering the marriage, usually through a religious ceremony which is considered legal for Islam.
'In the near future we will also issue a regulation that bans this kind of marriage.'
Mr Umar said the marriage course would last about one day and would be compulsory for all engaged Muslim couples hoping to marry.
'We will teach them about the risk of polygamy. The statistics show that polygamy does more harm than good,' he said.
'We have observed that the increasing divorce rate is caused by the fact that couples don't have sufficient knowledge about the substance of a marriage.' He said the idea was to 'eliminate or reduce the number of couples seeking divorce'.
Along with issues surrounding polygamy, the course would cover topics such as family planning and domestic violence.
'They will learn about contraception so that they won't have a child every year... About domestic violence, most married couples don't know that domestic violence can carry a jail sentence in this country,' he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/03/2009 00:00 ||
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Polygamy - the crime that is its own punishment.
#2
Read the Old Testament, and take a look at the polygamous families.
There's the Abraham/Sarah/Hagar triangle; the bitterness between Leah and Rachel, the bitchiness directed at Hannah by Peninah, who knows that their husband loves Hannah more, and so on.
Nowhere does the Bible describe a polygamous family that is harmonious. Indeed, Genesis states that "therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife." The verb "cleaving" in this context means sticking, like two lumps of clay molded into one ball.
Looks like Joseph Smith, Mohammed, and other didn't pay much attention to the details when they wrote their heresies.
US President Barack Obama came under pressure today to resist protectionism in reaction to the global economic crisis as top companies announced massive losses and protests broke out in Europe.
"We must avoid protectionism," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said when asked about a "Buy American" clause in Mr Obama's $US888 billion ($1.4 trillion) economic stimulus plan.
"Protectionism is the wrong answer" to the economic crisis, she said.
The German leader's comments came after a similar warning in a speech in Tokyo by the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who said: "Beggar thy neighbor policies will never give a good result."
There is growing concern among economists that some of the anti-crisis measures being implemented by governments to save jobs and aid ailing industries are contributing to a new wave of protectionism.
#1
Before you get to carried away with your bashing Angela, please take an afternoon off, visit your local Baumarkt and see how many home improvement items you can find NOT made in Deutschland und Ă–sterreich.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the reins of the 53-nation African Union at a summit in Ethiopia on Monday amid concerns over deadly unrest in Madagascar and a bid to indict Sudan's president for war crimes. Gaddafi, who has long promoted stronger union within the organization and poured money into some parts of Africa, was handed the chairman's gavel by outgoing AU leader Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian president, to warm applause from other leaders.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — The bound bodies of a Mexican general and two soldiers were found Tuesday morning near Cancun, news reports said.
Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain. The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world's leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers. 
